


Five Degrees West

by zorilleerrant



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 09:34:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19867402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zorilleerrant/pseuds/zorilleerrant
Summary: Bellatrix may only be the 25th brightest star, but she will shine.





	Five Degrees West

“Don’t play so _loudly_ , Bella,” they said. She was six years old. The neighbors ran around the garden hitting things with sticks, and she sat primly, clutching a doll made to look exactly like her. The doll was enchanted to wear exactly the same clothes she did, day after day, and when she went to thread a ribbon through her dolly’s hair, her mother slapped her hand away.

“Don’t be so _greedy_ , Bella,” they said. She was eight years old. Her father and his friends held china plates piled high with food and she had thought it looked like fun. The nanny had taken her plate and replaced it with another, small portions of each food artistically arranged, those she was allowed to eat staggered around the plate in a display of artful wantonness. Her plate was removed when she tried to eat more than her fair share of what was on it.

“Don’t dress so _casually_ , Bella,” they said. She was ten years old. The family had gone on a picnic, and her parents had been scolding her for making them late. She had to change her robes and one of the elves had had to re-pin her hair, and then she’d had to change her shoes to match the handbag her father had replaced her favorite satchel with, as a present, for her birthday. She could be beautiful when she tried.

“Don’t boggart the gobstones, Bella,” they said. She was eleven years old and proud to be in Slytherin house. She spoke softly when it was necessary to speak. She kept her clothing neat and to the moment. She concentrated on her studies, and her posture, and her reputation, and considered one day whose arm she might grace as she hosted his very own ball. She stepped out of the way graciously, and let them play with the game.

“Don’t stick your nose in business that isn’t yours, Bella,” they said. She was eleven years old and scared to be in Slytherin house. Thinking back she would realize her opponent was a child, too, no more than a few years older than she, but at the time the prefect had towered over her, gold edging on scarlet searing into her eyes, and she had raised her wand and spoken back in anger. Thinking back she would realize the hex did no more than sting, and that most likely the older student had left in disgust rather than run away in fear, but at the time she was more focused on her friends’ torn robes and stolen ribbons, one crying while the other held her and shook, and her pride.

“Thank you, Bellatrix,” they said.

“Don’t try to understand it, Bella,” they said. She was twelve and she stole their books and read and read until her eyes burned and made the potion perfectly on the first try. And upended it over their heads. She used her prim and proper pureblood voice to talk the headmaster into allowing her to advance in classes, with the consent of the teacher, of course. Potions first, then Charms, Dark Arts. If there was a practical component, she would prove it hers.

“Don’t pretend you don’t like me, Bella,” they said. She was thirteen and she had a wand to her first throat, voice low and guttural, trying her best to recreate threats in her father’s voice. She was thirteen and she fired so deep in the skin she couldn’t see the tip light up. She was thirteen and she would grace a wizard with more than her _presence_ if he took one step closer, only she took a step closer instead.

She was thirteen and she went to class like nothing happened, and no one suspected _sweet little Bella_ of putting the Head Boy in the hospital.

“Don’t trust Bella,” they said. She was fourteen and far too advanced, to skeptical looks from some and rumors from others. They were right but she was learning what to do with a wand, what the very limits of the very worst of wizard thought had found through centuries of pain and fear and hate. They were right but her family had so many books she could never hope to read them in time, her family had so many secrets but none had scared her more than her cousin whispering for help with what should have been a simple healing charm, her family had so many dreams but only three daughters to buy them with. She challenged her cousin’s husband to a duel the next day over something as simple as a cup of soup, screamed vitriol she’d picked up from the seventh year bathroom, and stayed completely, one hundred percent within the rules.

“That’s Bella, she’s crazy,” they said. She was fifteen and no longer little, no longer sweet. She was crazy but that meant she wasn’t beautiful. Her smile was vicious like a shark’s and the lower years trembled when they walked past her, and the upper years asked before they touched. There were only so many times she could challenge someone older, someone more practiced, someone so obviously stronger, I mean, just look at them, before they wouldn’t take her challenges anymore, neither with a laugh nor with that surety of gaze. And all that had meant she had to corner them, to find them when they were alone or better yet in public, and act as if they’d taken up her glove.

“Bellatrix, are you sure we should be doing this?” they said. She was sixteen and dressed head to toe in the latest muggle fashion, copied directly from a magazine they’d stolen from one of the muggleborns a few years down. With a languid, almost lazy sweep of her wand, her companions were dressed much the same, coordinating, ready to take on the world. She took them somewhere too loud and drenched in sweat and bile, somewhere the heady smell of carefully mixed cocktails was supposed to make up for their lack of cleaning charms. She kept her friends plied with alcohol and her eyes open, because her reputation in her school might have spread to the rest of the wizards, but muggles never saw the danger.

Muggles never saw the danger and sooner or later one of them would laugh at her and continue to slide his hand up her skirt and oh, the magic rushing into him warmed her wand like the first time she’d claimed it. He writhed and screamed at her feet and in that moment she could close her eyes and see the whole world at her feet, one by one.

Her parents insisted she grow out of it, bargained with her, cajoled. There wasn’t room in their world for a Dark Lady. She was supposed to take up the reigns only to pass them to her husband, and the most people were supposed to remark on were her lovely little charm recently, or hadn’t she worn an interesting hat. Her politics, too, seemed out of sorts.

To her, it sat like this:

Purebloods thought they owned their wives, women there purely to grease the wheels along which society ran. They had their own unique magics, to be sure, but they must do them _quietly_ lest they interrupt the important things going on.

Mudbloods thought no one owned women because they weren’t worth owning, that anything they could do could be better done by a man. That really, ideally, there would be none at all, except pulled out from time to time to have babies, or practice at least.

Halfbloods were one or the other or a mix of the two, and she never really cared to find out. They were all much the same in the end.

There was a man who never touched her, always asked what she wanted to do. She wasn’t stupid; she knew he could read minds, that he tailored his affect to the needs of his target, that she just as well could have been the pining witches that he wrapped himself around, breathing in their scents as he fluttered kisses against their necks, his features made sharper and all the more handsome because he knew just where they thought he might be prettier if.

She could have, but she wasn’t. The witches and wizards who wanted the enthralled lothario drove him mad with lust, and those who wanted the shy prince were courted softly for their hand, and those who wanted a friend or confidant got jokes in a low tone and the same secrets he’d never told everyone else, and those who wanted a clean pure world got vitriol so genuine it made his throat raw and bit his nails into his skin, and those who wanted to help people got enthusiastic nods and plans drawn out in a voice that talked too fast but there were too many ideas to slow down. And those that wanted power?

Bellatrix got a Dark Lord who stood several feet back, one hand outstretched for her to take or leave, and spells he hoarded in his private archives, rituals lost to time in a tongue no one else spoke. Bellatrix was treated like a peer. Sometimes she liked to think he saw something in her that reminded him of himself.

And if she fell for him, it would be by her own hand, as they all did, sooner or later.

“My lady Bellatrix,” they said, and it was with fear trembling their voices as she picked one to take to husband. He wouldn’t meet her eye and his hands tried to escape her the whole way through her vows, and that was just fine with her.

She was not beautiful. She was a warrior.


End file.
